


full grown in your meadowlark hair (killed you in the evening)

by viscrael



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Angst, Canon Timeline, Chimera Ant Arc, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Relationship, implied romance ish?, weird formatting?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-19 12:21:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12410220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viscrael/pseuds/viscrael
Summary: At the very least, the smell of blood doesn't follow him as he crawls into bed half an hour later. He is learning to be thankful for small miracles like that.--The boy's friend says,trust me.Says,I know what I'm doing.Says,I know my limits. Please. Trust me.And because he does, the boy says,okay.





	full grown in your meadowlark hair (killed you in the evening)

**Author's Note:**

> title from i killed you in the evening by foreign fields
> 
> hello hxh fandom! i havent written killugon in uhhhh literal years? but ive been thinking abt these boys so much lately, and also reading a lot of richard siken and messing around w/ formatting like this, so this sort of uhhhhh came out. 
> 
> its 2017 & im still not over the chimera ant arc but honestly? whos surprised
> 
> anyway this makes little 2 no sense probably so im sorry in advance

The hair is the worst part, the deadness of it. This is a dead thing, without a doubt, dragging in the dirt behind them as he walks. He knows what death smells like, and this permeates every strand, the stench of blood and organs and feces inescapable, overwhelming, enveloping. It doesn’t compare to the fire, though. The burnt flesh. The waves of black, thick like asphalt, strings of despair.

            Behind him, the ground reeks, and the forest knows what they’ve done. What has happened.

 

\--

 

The boy finds a coin on the ground as he is walking. The streets are busy, but no one notices as he bends to pick it up. It is smooth, surprisingly heavy in his hand.

         In front of him, his friend stops walking. He finally noticed that the boy stopped.

         "What is it?" his friend says. He comes to stand next to the boy, their shoulders touching. He is warm.

         The boy holds the coin out for his friend to see, and like he expected, his friend marvels at it. Their fingers brush as he takes it from the boy's hands. He never pays any mind to touching. To contact.

         "It's nice," he says. The boy stuffs his hands in his pockets, and they burn.

         "You act like you've never seen money before." The boy keeps his shoulders relaxed. He makes sure not to let on how his fingers tingle in his shorts' pockets, how he isn't thinking about the coin so much as the other in front of him.

         "Of course I have, but everyone of 'em's different, so it's still cool to see it." The friend rolls the coin between his fingers. The boy thinks about them, about his own, how thin they are in comparison. How cold. He wonders if his friend noticed how cold his skin is when they touched. If he minded it.

         The friend starts to give it back to the boy. The coin rests, copper and rusting, glinting the sun off of it.

         The boy shakes his head. "You can keep it."

         "You're sure?"

         "Yeah. 'S not like I need it anyway."

         He starts walking.

 

\--

 

The night is warm, the hotel room even warmer. The moon hangs heavy in the sky. It nears completion, but there are still a few more days before it will be a full moon.

         Tonight, the assassin's son is awake. He sits, his knees pulled up to his chest, perched on the window sill, still in his day clothes. He never changed out of them. He knew there was no point. He could not sleep yet.

         An owl sings outside the open window. Voices float from an alleyway near the hotel, drunkards and travelers and ladies of the night. Messy businesses, private, dangerous. He knows a thing or two about that. His chest pangs with something: a rhythm, muscle memory, a desire. For the past? He doesn't know. It's difficult, this life, sometimes. He thinks it isn't difficult for other people. He doesn't want it to be difficult for him.

         He's trying.

         A gust of wind hits him. Voices travel, louder now, shouting, two men in an argument, one with slurred words, the other sharp and demanding, both just as audible. He tries to block out their dialogue. Ignore them.

         _"You get what you pay for!"_

         Someone gasps for breath, and like a switch, his adrenaline has coursed through him, meeting every inch of his body in seconds. Only when silence follows does he calm down.

         At the very least, the smell of blood doesn't follow him as he crawls into bed half an hour later. He is learning to be thankful for small miracles like that.

 

\--

 

"How big are your hands?"

         Gon doesn't wait for Killua to respond before he has his own hand raised in the air in front of him expectedly, his palm flat, fingers spread. Killua looks between Gon's expression—waiting patiently—and his raised hand.

         "Why?" he asks, instead of answering.

         Gon shrugs. "I just wanna know if they're bigger than mine. They probably aren't, right? You're pretty much smaller than me in everything."

         "I'm three inches taller than you," Killua points out.

         "Yeah, but I mean in everything else. You're taller, but I'm wider, ya know? Plus, I have a really chubby face." He takes his hand from the air for a second just to press both of his hands to his cheeks as if to demonstrate.

            "You'll grow out of that," Killua mumbles, but he finally raises his hand in the air to meet Gon.

 

\--

 

The boy's friend says, _trust me._ Says _, I know what I'm doing._ Says _, I know my limits. Please. Trust me._

And because he does, the boy says, _okay_. The walls watch him as he leaves. They say, _don't go,_ but he doesn't hear them before the door slams shut and the darkness of tonight envelopes him. Tonight is a full moon, but here, there is no sound.

 

\--

 

In the hotel room, the assassin’s son wakes for the fourth time that night.

         This time is the last. The clock they were provided is broken, but the sky outside is still tar black. At the foot of the bed, the hunter's son is awake.

         He is only sitting. His back to the other. His body still, untouched ocean. His chest rises and falls evenly with every moment that crawls past them, and the assassin's son counts the seconds, _one two three four five six,_ until the hunter's son notices he is awake.

 

\--

 

Gon has callouses all over his palms and fingers from years of fishing and manual labor, and they scrape against Killua's skin when they meet. It isn’t unpleasant, though; Gon is warm, and there's something about this that's…nice. Besides, Killua thinks, he has his own share of callouses, too. He's sure Gon can feel his.

         They sit like that for a moment, cross-legged across from each other, comparing hand sizes. Gon was right. Killua's fingers are thinner, although he thinks he can see that the tips of his stretch over Gon's by a few centimeters.

         "See?" Gon says. "Taller, but slenderer."

         "I don't know that that's a word," Killua says, not hiding his grin.

         Gon thinks about it. "Isn't it?"

         "If it is, it sounds bad."

         "Yeah," he laughs, "I guess it does."

         Killua realizes all at once that this is the closest he's ever gotten to holding Gon's hand, _actually_ holding it. They've held onto each other before, sure, with Killua grabbing Gon's hand as they weave through a crowd so as not to get lost, or with Gon grabbing Killua's and dragging him behind him because he's too excited to wait for the other. But it isn't like _this:_ sitting alone on a hotel room floor, their knees touching, facing each other, hands pressed together for no reason than to touch.

         His face is warm. Almost as warm as Gon's hand against his. Killua snatches his hand back like he's been burned by that warmth.

         "Anyway," he says, rushed, "I guess you were right."

 

\--

 

The body is warm.

         It lays across the boy's shoulders, a heavy cloud draping over him, and he walks, and walks, and walks, until the sun is rising, and even as the full moon disappears he does not stop walking. The body is warm. The body is warm.

         An odd thing, warmth. It shows when someone is alive. A cold thing: dead. He holds onto the heat pressing into his shoulder blades, running across his shoulders and covering his upper arms. He holds onto its existence, thinking _I am here I am here I am here_. Thinking, _you are alive you are alive you are alive_. Thinking, _I won't leave I won't leave and you won't leave either_. The paint warned him, but he did not hear its prophecy before the lightning began in his fingertips.

         He did not hear it.


End file.
